Date: Mon, 28 May 2012 16:08:41 -0500 (CDT) From: Robert Bonomi <bonomi@mail.r-bonomi.com> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: removing /var/empty on a non-system disk Message-ID: <201205282108.q4SL8fqJ090973@mail.r-bonomi.com> In-Reply-To: <4FC3CC89.1000504@dreamchaser.org>
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h > From owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Mon May 28 14:10:55 2012 > Date: Mon, 28 May 2012 13:05:45 -0600 > From: Gary Aitken <freebsd@dreamchaser.org.r-bonomi.com> > To: Polytropon <freebsd@edvax.de> > Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org > Subject: Re: removing /var/empty on a non-system disk > > On 5/25/2012 4:01 PM, Polytropon wrote: > > > > I should have mentioned that I did the (successful) test > > logging in as root (real console login). If you use "su -" > > or "su root", the effect should be the same. You can always > > check the success of your operation with the "ls -lo" command. > > Nope. That was the problem. I had logged in on the vty as normal user > and done su root. Had to back all the way out and log in on the vty as > root to make it work. I'm going to guess that you did 'su root', not 'su - root'. The two commands are *NOT* identical. 'su root' does not run the root 'login' scripts; thus environment variables (including path, user, logname etc.) are *not* set as they are on root login -- this causes some 'am i root' tests to fail. OTOH, 'su - root' should be equivalent to a root login in all respects. NOTE; there will be issues if the 'working directory' of a parent process is the directory you are trying to delete.
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